Elon big decline in enrollment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For class of 2029. Thoughts?

https://www.elonnewsnetwork.com/article/2025/08/elon-university-class-of-2029-enrollment-decreases-11-6

The whole U.S. student market is going towards the direction of either you go to a T50 national university, or a T20 LAC, or you don’t go at all.

+++++++

Never mind the increased interest in SEC schools and schools like Arizona, SMU, TCU and Boulder. Out of all the kids I know, probably close to half are choosing schools that fall below T50 or T20 SLAC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As of this past application cycle, Elon's merit awards top out at around $23,500 for the best kids (about 60 total per entering class), and most kids will get no more than $17,500 I think. Other nearby schools that get similar applicants, like Furman, Wofford, Sewanee, etc. were offering similar kids merit amounts around $35,000 or so. While those schools do cost a little bit more, their cost of attendance for the brighter kids with no financial need is going to be lower than Elon's most of the time. Perhaps Elon needs to up their merit for the best applicants (to the extent they financially are able to do so)? Though it was interesting to read that a previous poster noted that Furman's enrollment is down, too.

I have a pretty low stats kid (bad GPA based on a terrible freshman year, SAT is decent considering the GPA and the fact that he only took the SAT once). Anyway, our HS has pretty good luck with kids getting into Elon so I ran the NPC and it came back that he would get no merit. Ran it for U Denver, a school I consider in a similar echelon and it came back with 16K/year merit. Like, Elon is fine but there's no reason to pay full price for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As of this past application cycle, Elon's merit awards top out at around $23,500 for the best kids (about 60 total per entering class), and most kids will get no more than $17,500 I think. Other nearby schools that get similar applicants, like Furman, Wofford, Sewanee, etc. were offering similar kids merit amounts around $35,000 or so. While those schools do cost a little bit more, their cost of attendance for the brighter kids with no financial need is going to be lower than Elon's most of the time. Perhaps Elon needs to up their merit for the best applicants (to the extent they financially are able to do so)? Though it was interesting to read that a previous poster noted that Furman's enrollment is down, too.

I have a pretty low stats kid (bad GPA based on a terrible freshman year, SAT is decent considering the GPA and the fact that he only took the SAT once). Anyway, our HS has pretty good luck with kids getting into Elon so I ran the NPC and it came back that he would get no merit. Ran it for U Denver, a school I consider in a similar echelon and it came back with 16K/year merit. Like, Elon is fine but there's no reason to pay full price for it.

Their full-pay tuition rate is identical to most privates “scholarship”, they price it lower to start by that amount and that is usuals merit given as a baseline.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As of this past application cycle, Elon's merit awards top out at around $23,500 for the best kids (about 60 total per entering class), and most kids will get no more than $17,500 I think. Other nearby schools that get similar applicants, like Furman, Wofford, Sewanee, etc. were offering similar kids merit amounts around $35,000 or so. While those schools do cost a little bit more, their cost of attendance for the brighter kids with no financial need is going to be lower than Elon's most of the time. Perhaps Elon needs to up their merit for the best applicants (to the extent they financially are able to do so)? Though it was interesting to read that a previous poster noted that Furman's enrollment is down, too.

I have a pretty low stats kid (bad GPA based on a terrible freshman year, SAT is decent considering the GPA and the fact that he only took the SAT once). Anyway, our HS has pretty good luck with kids getting into Elon so I ran the NPC and it came back that he would get no merit. Ran it for U Denver, a school I consider in a similar echelon and it came back with 16K/year merit. Like, Elon is fine but there's no reason to pay full price for it.

Their full-pay tuition rate is identical to most privates “scholarship”, they price it lower to start by that amount and that is usuals merit given as a baseline.

No. Nowadays Elon is about $10k higher than the net price (after "merit aid") of most similarly ranked privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As of this past application cycle, Elon's merit awards top out at around $23,500 for the best kids (about 60 total per entering class), and most kids will get no more than $17,500 I think. Other nearby schools that get similar applicants, like Furman, Wofford, Sewanee, etc. were offering similar kids merit amounts around $35,000 or so. While those schools do cost a little bit more, their cost of attendance for the brighter kids with no financial need is going to be lower than Elon's most of the time. Perhaps Elon needs to up their merit for the best applicants (to the extent they financially are able to do so)? Though it was interesting to read that a previous poster noted that Furman's enrollment is down, too.

I have a pretty low stats kid (bad GPA based on a terrible freshman year, SAT is decent considering the GPA and the fact that he only took the SAT once). Anyway, our HS has pretty good luck with kids getting into Elon so I ran the NPC and it came back that he would get no merit. Ran it for U Denver, a school I consider in a similar echelon and it came back with 16K/year merit. Like, Elon is fine but there's no reason to pay full price for it.

Their full-pay tuition rate is identical to most privates “scholarship”, they price it lower to start by that amount and that is usuals merit given as a baseline.

No. Nowadays Elon is about $10k higher than the net price (after "merit aid") of most similarly ranked privates.

That was not the case for mine this last cycle, got merit at all and they were all within $1k of each other, all the other privates much higher starting cost and larger scholarships. Elon lower starting cost, lower scholarship. They are pretty clear this is their desire, assumed that would be case for all but will only claim on what we experienced.

[Anonymous]

Interesting that nobody has yet mentioned that Elon is a top ranked school for acting, musical theatre and dance. Their BFA programs rank up there with NYU, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Pace, and Penn State.

Their reputation in the performing arts world is stellar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that nobody has yet mentioned that Elon is a top ranked school for acting, musical theatre and dance. Their BFA programs rank up there with NYU, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Pace, and Penn State.

Their reputation in the performing arts world is stellar.

That ain’t helping enrollment or paying the bills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ridiculous. There are hundreds of less-selective in state schools, all of which have better results than trying to get a job without a Bachelors degree. I know wildly successful people who went to University of Oregon, Temple, University of Albany, University of South Carolina...just a random sampling of people I personally know.

What's your point? Those are all much better schools than Elon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that nobody has yet mentioned that Elon is a top ranked school for acting, musical theatre and dance. Their BFA programs rank up there with NYU, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Pace, and Penn State.

Their reputation in the performing arts world is stellar.

No they don't. Just stop it. And I say that as a mom of a recent Elon dance major. The whole thing was a joke and she coudn't get in to an even top 150 law school, with her 3.75 dance GPA. If she had to do it over, she would have gone to UMD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ridiculous. There are hundreds of less-selective in state schools, all of which have better results than trying to get a job without a Bachelors degree. I know wildly successful people who went to University of Oregon, Temple, University of Albany, University of South Carolina...just a random sampling of people I personally know.

What's your point? Those are all much better schools than Elon.

NP. Those are all on par with each other. Elon is better than a few

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that nobody has yet mentioned that Elon is a top ranked school for acting, musical theatre and dance. Their BFA programs rank up there with NYU, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Pace, and Penn State.

Their reputation in the performing arts world is stellar.

No they don't. Just stop it. And I say that as a mom of a recent Elon dance major. The whole thing was a joke and she coudn't get in to an even top 150 law school, with her 3.75 dance GPA. If she had to do it over, she would have gone to UMD.

Why was her experience a joke? Why would she get into ANY law school with a 3.7 dance GPA? UMD seems like a smart choice to me, what were you hoping for when you sent her?

Usually parents rave about Elon compared to the big impersonal publics

[Anonymous]

You don't go to Elon as a dance major to go to law school. You go because you want to get a job in the performing arts. They do a good job at that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't go to Elon as a dance major to go to law school. You go because you want to get a job in the performing arts. They do a good job at that.

Exactly - they consistently rank in the top 10 schools who have graduates performing on Broadway - I wouldn't expect a dance program to prepare a kid for law school, but I would expect it to prepare a kid for a career in the field of dance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't go to Elon as a dance major to go to law school. You go because you want to get a job in the performing arts. They do a good job at that.

Okay, then why do you think she had to apply to law school? No, it did not successfully launch her into a dance career. I knew the whole thing was a bad idea, but it was an argument I could not win with her and my spouse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't go to Elon as a dance major to go to law school. You go because you want to get a job in the performing arts. They do a good job at that.

Okay, then why do you think she had to apply to law school? No, it did not successfully launch her into a dance career. I knew the whole thing was a bad idea, but it was an argument I could not win with her and my spouse.

Even Julliard has plenty of graduates that don’t amount to anything in the Arts. It’s the nature of an extremely fickle industry where there are 100x more aspiring artists than paid gigs and of course tons of competition that never attended college for the arts.